Directory Structure ?s for an Exploded Web Application

Question

We have an application that consists only of JSPs and Servlets, no
EJBs. I am researching whether or not it's worthwhile to start using
EJBs. We're also migrating from Weblogic 5 to 6.1. I've managed to
migrate our application fine and have it up and running on WLS 6.1.
I'm confused about the exploded directory structure, the
application.xml file, where to put the EJBs and whether or not I have
to jar them. Here's our current directory structure:
DefaultWebApp/               JSPs here
DefaultWebApp/WEB-INF          web.xml and weblogic.xml here
DefaultWebApp/WEB-INF/classes     Servlets and other classes here
DefaultWebApp/WEB-INF/lib     do my un-jar-ed EJBs go here?
I've been reading a lot of BEA's documentation, particularly
‘Deploying an Exploded J2EE Application' and a ‘Web Application PDF',
and looking for relevant threads on the weblogic.developer.interest
groups. It looks like the application.xml should go in a new
DefaultWebApp/META-INF directory. But where do the EJBs go?
I also see some directory structures with another /web directory
that's confusing me.
Oh, I've also managed to compile and jar up a trial Stateless Session
EJB. Then I think I ‘auto-deployed' it into the /applications
directory, and Weblogic seems to recognize it. But when I tried to
reference it in a JSP, I got an error message ‘class x is public,
should be declared in a file named x.java'. I'm assuming this is
related to the application.xml, where I need to define the ejb
directory.
Thanks.

Answer 1

To deploy your web app together with your EJBs, you need to create
an "EAR" structure. Both your webapp and your EJB jars will be within
this new structure, at the same level. You may jar up your EJBs, or you
may explode their structure, it's up to you.
The resulting structure should look something like below:
EnterpriseApp/ <-- new top level
EnterpriseApp/META-INF/
EnterpriseApp/META-INF/application.xml
EnterpriseApp/lib/ <-- shared libraries (if any)
EnterpriseApp/EJB/ <-- ejbs go here
EnterpriseApp/EJB/META-INF/ejb-jar.xml
EnterpriseApp/EJB/META-INF/weblogic-ejb-jar.xml
EnterpriseApp/EJB/com/your/ejb/classes/here
EnterpriseApp/WebApp/ <-- move your current app here
EnterpriseApp/WebApp/index.jsp <-- JSPs goes here
EnterpriseApp/WebApp/other.jsp
EnterpriseApp/WebApp/WEB-INF/web.xml
EnterpriseApp/WebApp/WEB-INF/weblogic.xml
EnterpriseApp/WebApp/WEB-INF/lib <-- ui libraries go here
EnterpriseApp/WebApp/WEB-INF/classes <-- servlets go here
The above structure is identical to the structure to an EAR file, only "exploded"
as actual files and directories instead of being "jarred" into a single EAR file.
Your application.xml in this case would specify something like:
<application>
<display-name>EnterpriseApp</display-name>
<description>My Enterprise Application</display-name>
<module>
<ejb>EJB</ejb>
</module>
<module>
<web>
<web-uri>WebApp</web-uri>
<context-root>/yourAppRoot</context-root>
</web>
</module>
</application>
And in config.xml you would have an entry similar to:
<Application Deployed="true" Name="EnterpriseApp"
Path=".\config\mydomain\applications\EnterpriseApp">
<WebAppComponent Name="ui" Targets="myserver" URI="WebApp"/>
<EJBComponent Name="ejb" Targets="myserver" URI="EJB"/>
</Application>
regards,
-Ade